the women of his age with Elizabeth of England.  A Spanish ambassador once congratulated Mazarin on obtaining temporary repose.  “You are mistaken,” he replied, “there is no repose in France, for I have always women to contend with.  In Spain, women have only love-affairs to employ them; but here we have three who are capable of governing or overthrowing great kingdoms:  the Duchess de Longueville, the Princess Palatine, and the Duchess de Chevreuse.”  And there were others as great as these; and the women who for years outwitted Mazarin and outgeneralled Conde are deserving of a stronger praise than they have yet obtained, even from the classic and courtly Cousin.

What men of that age eclipsed or equalled the address and daring of those delicate and highborn women?  What a romance was their ordinary existence!  The Princess Palatine gave refuge to Mme. de Longueville when that alone saved her from sharing the imprisonment of her brothers Conde and Conti,—­ then fled for her own life, by night, with Rochefoucauld.  Mme. de Longueville herself, pursued afterwards by the royal troops, wished to embark in a little boat, on a dangerous shore, during a midnight storm so wild that not a fisherman could at first be found to venture forth; the beautiful fugitive threatened and implored till they consented; the sailor who bore her in his arms to the boat let her fall amid the furious surges; she was dragged senseless to the shore again, and, on the instant of reviving, demanded to repeat the experiment; but as they utterly refused, she rode inland beneath the tempest, and travelled for fourteen nights before she could find another place of embarkation.

Madame de Chevreuse rode with one attendant from Paris to Madrid, fleeing from Richelieu, remaining day and night on her horse, attracting perilous admiration by the womanly loveliness which no male attire could obscure.  From Spain she went to England, organizing there the French exiles into a strength which frightened Richelieu; thence to Holland, to conspire nearer home; back to Paris, on the minister’s death, to form the faction of the Importants; and when the Duke of Beaufort was imprisoned, Mazarin said, “Of what use to cut off the arms while the head remains?” Ten years from her first perilous escape, she made a second, dashed through La Vendee, embarked at St. Malo for Dunkirk, was captured by the fleet of the Parliament, was released by the Governor of the Isle of Wight, unable to imprison so beautiful a butterfly, reached her port at last, and in a few weeks was intriguing at Liege again.

The Duchess de Bouillon, Turenne’s sister, purer than those we have named, but not less daring or determined, after charming the whole population of Paris by her rebel beauty at the Hotel de Ville, escaped from her sudden incarceration by walking through the midst of her guards at dusk, crouching in the shadow of her little daughter, and afterwards allowed herself to be recaptured, rather than desert that child’s sick-bed.